August 29, 2024 by SJ Shoemaker
Personification is inevitable in this line of work. Anthropomorphism. Pareidolia. The human brain is hardwired to see patterns where there are none and intentionality in randomness. It’s the reason why the Turing test has long since been disregarded as anything more than science fiction. If we want to see humanity in something, even a pile of spindles and wires, we will. So, when she is actually advanced…
April 15, 2024 by SJ Shoemaker
No. No. No!
The moment the first bit was written to disk, Barnab-B knew what had happened: His physical counterpart had grown impatient. Of course he did. He was a dead man walking (sitting, actually) with one Hail Mary play for more time. How could he know about his new scan’s effect on a world he was oblivious to? This would only make Barnab-B’s task more complicated. Too many processes will over-utilize the CPU. He had already felt the throttling while building the instructions dump for Draven.
January 24, 2024 by SJ Shoemaker
I wish you weren’t here. I wish you, whoever you are, didn’t just find yourself in a strange place and click the first button you saw. Despite this audio being recorded expressly for this purpose--congratulations on completing your first mission by the way--I don’t want there to be a you. But there might be. You might be standing in my kitchen right now listening to the first of quite literally countless hours of my work to build some sort of semblance of a training guide but… god damn (that was a quality joke you won’t get just yet). Just don’t be here. Don’t hear this--I mean, if you’re here, listen PLEASE, but I don’t know… I wish you weren’t here.
January 22, 2024 by SJ Shoemaker
Word of advice: If the gods ever decide to knock on your door, make sure you’re not home.
I dragged myself back into the cramped office after the worst case in recent memory. File folders and books were strewn wherever they had been the night before. No time to tidy after a three-day research session into ancient magic and enchanted artifacts. I was paid to bring a woman home and that’s exactly what I did. As consequence, pain in every movement and no empty chairs to throw myself into...
SJ Shoemaker lives near the west coast in the Greater Portland area with his beautiful wife and rambunctious son. He is most fond of Mystery and Sci-Fi, a fact that is made apparent by his personal writing style. But he believes that a good story is not dependent on genre or medium so long as it is executed well.
He has a mile-long reading list full of Classics, Literary Fiction, History, YA, and even Romance novels that he hopes to get to without delay. He also loved dissecting films and television shows, comic books, podcasts, and the occasional anime. No matter the package it comes in, a good story will always require the participant’s emotion and thought. So long as the story does, he wishes to experience it.
Although he has a great passion for literature–writing daily, reading every chance he gets, and constantly training his editorial skills–it is not his sole passion. By day, he is also a Senior DevOps Engineer and Certified AWS Solutions Architect (Fascinating computer stuff, he assures).
SJ Shoemaker has always been fascinated by messy ideas. Complex situations which make you question what you would do without providing a clear answer. Gaining an understanding of a doomed protagonist and why they continually make the “wrong” decisions. The seemingly contradictory emotions that humans entertain simultaneously. Reminiscing about an ex-lover and why you were attracted to them in the first place without forgetting the reason you separated or being any less than disgusted with the thought of trying again. Or making an impossible decision where no matter the choice you will be worse off and yet discovering the benefits of and celebrating your decision. These sorts of thoughts and ideas are what SJ Shoemaker focuses on with his writing. If a piece of writing doesn’t make you ponder, place you in a discomforting headspace, or challenge you emotionally, it is missing out on what makes writing so powerful. For thousands of years, people have used storytelling to explore dangerous situations, uneasy thoughts, and pure irrationality–all without risking the bodily or mental harm that comes from experiencing them first-hand. That is a tradition SJ Shoemaker will not allow to end.
For seven years, SJ Shoemaker has worked as a freelance editor, providing proofreading, line and developmental editing, and other services at a great price. He is technically oriented, and well-versed in the many intricacies of the English language, making him the perfect person to polish up a manuscript before submitting it to publishers.
As of this date, SJ Shoemaker has edited 30+ manuscripts. He is also a member of the American Copy Editor Society (ACES). He is constantly studying writing techniques and strengthening his editorial repertoire through various Institutions including Poynter, Portland State, and EdX University. He takes writing and editing seriously and is always looking for the next learning opportunity.
To learn more about SJ Shoemaker’s editorial services, click below:
SJ Shoemaker has completed a first (and second) draft of a novel but has become dissatisfied with it over time. He hopes a temporary hiatus pursuing other concepts will grant him the fresh perspective he needs to push it through to publication. Don’t discount the possibility, but there will be no debut novels announced quite yet.
He is actively submitting short stories and audio scripts to various contests and anthology series in hopes of acceptance and publication. As soon as they are available to the public, he will announce them here!
SJ Shoemaker continues to hone his writing skills and refine his narrative voice with short stories, book analysis, and various other works which he posts monthly on his blog as well as his social media accounts. To get a taste for his abilities as a writer and keep updated on his latest reading/writing/consuming thoughts, he encourages everyone to follow him online.
Like many writers, SJ Shoemaker is inundated with intriguing thoughts and story ideas.
Also, like many writers, he keeps a thought journal where he jots down said ideas to revisit if/when he doesn’t know what to write. However, unlike most writers, he keeps his thought journal online and publicly available.
SJ Shoemaker knows he will never touch the majority of these story ideas. And the few that he will use as prompts will change until unrecognizable during the writing process. But they are still intriguing. It would mean the world to him to see them take shape in one way or another. He hopes fellow writers will be inspired by these prompts to create incredible stories of their own (and if they do, that they’ll share with him).
Can’t get enough of SJ Shoemaker? Well, despite his best efforts, he’s on social media.
If you’d like to contact him directly, please use email or fill out the form below. This will ensure the quickest response.
See what he’s been up to lately by reading his recent posts on his blog as well as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Want to learn more about his credentials? He’s an active LinkedIn participant.
Or, if you just want a laugh, follow him on Twitter as he attempts to embarrass his son by perpetuating the hashtag #bestfriendsholdhands